As regular readers might know, hypocrisy has always been especially repulsive to me. I would go so far as to say that it makes even the most depraved actions that much worse. As many of you also know, we live in an era defined by virtue signalling aka hypocrisy. Malicious corporations are constantly pretending to be your best friends, incredibly corrupt politicians never stop trying to portray themselves as paragons of honesty and every “celebrity” or wannabe is fully on board with anything which sounds remotely fashionable, hip or ‘woke’. In the age of ubiquitous social media and internet access, such virtue signalling often leads to darkly comical consequences. It is, therefore, not surprising that Harvey Weinstein loved portraying himself as a left-wing political champion, member of the #resistance and yes.. even a ‘feminist’.

Before we go into the whole issue of male celebrities supporting feminism, let us first talk about the problem.. I mean the issue.. of male ‘feminists’. Who are these people anyway? Some of you might think that everyone in this category looks like one of those spineless, pussy-whipped and young white guys holding signs proclaiming their support for feminism or wearing T-shirts with similar slogans. But as is often the case, they are just one public manifestation of a much deeper and larger problem. The problem.. you see.. is that most white guys are secret male ‘feminists’. But why I am dunking on white guys? Don’t self-proclaimed male feminists come in a number of skin colors? Well.. yes, but the percentage of non-white guys believing in this ideology are quite low when compared to white guys. But why is that so?

And this is where we get into a topic some would prefer to avoid. Pedestalling white women has a deep connection with racism, specifically the belief that whites are somehow superior or more desirable than others. That is for example why black men do not have an especially high opinion of women (black, white etc) or why for example continental European white men do not pedestal white women to the same extent as american white men. The extent of pedestalling white women in a given country is directly proportional to its legacy of racism, colonialism and slavery. And yes.. ‘feminism’ as practiced in the west is largely about benefiting white women and virtue signalling alleged “moral superiority” to other nations. It is therefore darkly comic to watch the biggest supporters and cheerleaders of this performance art now getting thrown under the bus.

Let us now move onto the issue of “celebrities” or more precisely the conditions enabling their mass production. It has long been my belief that celebrities are the logical consequences of large corporations trying to sell their products in an atomised society full of mass media. I do plan to, hopefully soon, write another post on the connection between increasing social atomisation and rise of celebrities. For the proposes of this post, we will restrict ourselves to the fact that most celebrities owe their rise due to some combination of luck and corporate (or institutional) greed. However they have no special talent and can be easily replaced or eclipsed by many other who would love to replace them. Hence the need to remain in public eye through a combination of controversies, endorsements or anything that makes them seem relevant- at least to themselves.

Over the last few years, a convergence of some superficially unrelated trends with others has made it almost necessary for any male celebrity to publicly proclaim himself as a feminist- whether he believes in that ideology or not. Combined with the rise of ubiquitous social media and internet access, this has given rise to many darkly comic instances of famous men with peculiar histories concerning their interactions with women being exposed as hypocrites. It is, for once, nice to see that those who once publicly supported idiotic ideas such as “believe all women” and “due legal process is injustice” are hoisted by their own petard. Don’t feel sorry for those idiots who were happy to throw other men under the bus, but now find themselves in that same predicament.